So long Papa’s: Family-owned pizzeria closing after 52 years

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Tony Buragina’s earliest memory of Papa’s Pizzeria and Restaurant is as a little boy eating spumoni ice cream in a back room as his father and mother worked the restaurant they owned.

For Melina Buragina it was music: people playing the piano her parents bought her and kept in the restaurant.

The final memory will come soon, as the restaurant that has been open nearly 52 years will close after Saturday. The weekend promises to be busy as pizza lovers say goodbye.

“This is not a restaurant, this is our living room; it’s our home,” said Tony, gesturing to the wooden tables at the St. George Street eatery.

The restaurant was filled often by regulars wanting to visit with their father, founder Leo Buragina, who died in 2022.

“It has been heartbreaking,” Melina said of the closing. “It has taken us a while to get to this decision.”

Melina, 56, has Guillain Barre Syndrome that limits how much she can work and that made the decision to close easier.

“It is difficult for me physically,” she said.

Tony, 59, runs the family-owned food distribution business E.B. Foods that is on site and supplies many restaurants across southern Ontario. The company will stay in business after the restaurant closes and Melina will join him in that business.

“My sister and dad ran the show for the most part,” he said of the restaurant.

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Their mother Amalia Buragina, 80, joins the conversation fully supporting the family decision to close.

“I think it’s about time. The kids have worked hard. I have retired. Because the family business (E.B. Foods) is connected to the restaurant, we could not lease it out. I don’t want strangers here,” she said.

Tony said he thought of selling the pizzeria but decided to close it because he doesn’t want someone else to take over the Papa’s Pizza name.

“Whoever takes this over, their intention would be to keep it going, but they will change it. When they change it, the customers will say, ‘It’s not the same’ and that is the last memory they will have,” Tony said.

Leo Buragina opened Papa’s in September 1972. A classic immigrant tale, he tried his hand at several businesses. He sold household products and food items door-to-door to members of the Italian community until saving enough to buy property and open a store selling Italian groceries before establishing the restaurant.

“Our food is good but people came here for my father, that is our family legacy,” Melina said. “E.B. Foods is the family business. This (the restaurant) stayed open largely because of my dad.”

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Tony recalls growing up in the restaurant but his children have decided restaurant life is not for them and there are no family members to whom to hand it off.

“I was eight years old and I remember I was here a lot of the time. I sat in the back room and ate spumoni ice cream,” said Tony, seated in the dining room of the restaurant.

“My dad was going to make this into an Italian restaurant but I don’t think London was ready for fine Italian cuisine. We had a chef here from Italy. Business was not as good as he anticipated until he started making panzerotti,” within the first year of being in business.

“Things turned around when he started with panzerotti. We make it the same we always have. We know how to make it. My sister makes it now, we call her the panzerotti queen,” he said with a laugh.

“I had one woman come here, a regular for years and she asked me, ‘Where am I supposed to go now?’ I said ‘Where are you supposed to go? Where am I supposed to go?’ ”

The Buragina family is well known in London as entrepreneurs with family members operating Buragina’s Men’s Wear, Westown Shoe Repair at Cherryhill Village Mall and another pizza restaurant in Westmount called Mama’s Pizza that opened in the 1970s and is now closed.

“When we came here we were hungry, but not for food. We were hungry for success,” Tony said.

ndebono@postmedia.com

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